– Transcript 125
R: Good afternoon. I welcome you with all my heart. It’s a pleasure to be with you again this lovely Sunday afternoon. You have nowhere else to go. You’ve seen all the movies. You’ve gone bowling. You’re bored with life so you’re here. It’s good to see you anyway. No matter what you do, where you come from. When you come in here you’re brand new. The past is dead. Yesterday does not exist. You are here free at last.
I have a dog by the name of Dimitri, who takes me for a walk every morning. As soon as I open the door he runs out while I have him by the chain, by his leash. And he starts running to the park and I run with him. He gets to the park and starts eating grass.
(students laugh) He thinks he’s a cow. (laughter) He eats tons of grass. (laughter) Then he runs around the park and goes back home and throws up. He does this everyday. (laughter) So I was thinking about this. Isn’t this like most of us? We become involved with the world. We never learn. We go through certain situations, certain conditions again and again and again and again. We repeat the same things over and over again. We are told not to get involved in the world physically, yet we do. We go through situations, conditions they hurt us, we take a rest and do it all over again. Some of us never learn.
I tell you every week that the world is Maya. Do not take the world seriously. Do what you do in the world but mentally keep your mind in the Self, in God. Be in the world but not of the world. But some of you do not listen. You allow the world to show you its tricks. To make you depressed or to make you happy. To make you sick or to make you well. To make you rich or to make you poor. And you respond accordingly. You become angry upset, you repeat the same things again and again, same situations.
When will you learn that you live in a world of constant change. This world has no support, no substance. It has no beginning, no end, no existence. Brahman is the world.
The world is nothing without Brahman, without God. Brahman is not a person, place or thing. Brahman is something that cannot be explained. Brahman is your Self.
Yet you do not believe this. You believe you are a frail human being who has to go through life’s experiences like a leaf in the wind. Being blown in all directions, as if you have no control. Yet you are the Master, you are the one. There is only you. Yet you do not believe me. You keep believing that you are a person with experiences. And as long as you believe this the experiences become stronger and stronger and stronger. You find sometimes it’s impossible to break away. For you have allowed the world and its manifestations to totally control you. To push your buttons, to make you react a certain way. When you see something that you call good you become happy. When you see something that you call bad you become unhappy. The world has become your Master. Yet in truth the world has no power of its own. The power comes from you. You are the one that says, “This is right and this is wrong,” or “This is good and this is bad. This is up and this is down.”
When you realize that there is no up and down. There is no good or bad. There is no right or wrong. This sometimes maybe dangerous for me to say. When I say there is no right or wrong or good and bad for it can mean to you, to give you license to do all kinds of crazy things in this world. Cause problems to others.
Yet this is the role that you are playing in the world. We live in a world of duality.
When there is total peace in the world somebody will come along and create a war, in order to obliterate peace. When there are wars and man’s inhumanity to man in the world somebody comes along and tries to make peace.
There is no evenness in this world. You can never have total peace or total chaos.
There appears to be two powers and one is always contradicting the other. Look at your personal life. Things are going well for a while something happens, seems to pull the rug from under your feet and you become upset. Things are terrible in your life for a while, something comes along and changes it. And things are pretty good for a while and so it is all through your life.
The time comes when you get disgusted with this whole game. The time comes when you want to search for eternal happiness, for infinite peace that doesn’t change. The search begins within yourself. You begin to examine yourself, diligently. You begin to question yourself. And the answers come out of your self. They are not necessarily the answers you’ve been looking for but the answers come. As you search deep within yourself you are led to the right book, to the right teacher, to the right circumstances, the right experience. You begin to unfold. You begin to look at this world in which you live and you see it differently for the first time.
You see the world as an image projected by your self. The world begins to have less meaning to you. You begin to drop many of the things you’ve been into. Many of the situations, conditions that you’ve been involved in. You let go of them. You make your life simple. The simpler your life becomes the happier you begin to feel.
There is no one any longer that can upset you or to push your buttons. To make you feel superior or inferior. When you get this far you begin to search further within yourself, go deeper and you contact the I. The wisdom within you tells you that all of these years you’ve been trying to exchange external conditions, trying to remove certain aspects of the world from your life. When all the time it is the I that should have been removed. For it is the I that feels the conditions. It is the I that causes you to do all the things you do.
Your belief system, your preconceived ideas, your concepts are really all I. That is all they are is, I. They have no validity of their own. They have no power of their own.
They’re simply I. When you realize this, a great weight has been lifted from you. For you come to the conclusion that there is nothing you have to change in the world for all the world is attached to I, is a part of I. Therefore you begin to spend your time in removing the I, transcending the I, annihilating the I, you look for every conceivable way to kill the I.
For wisdom tells you, when the I is gone everything else will also be gone. You therefore begin to find the cause of the I. Where does this I come from? You search for its source.
When Sages of the past have sat under a tree and pondered this situation they realized that this I doesn’t even exist but yet in order to become free we must still try to eliminate it for we think we are the body and the mind. Therefore we have to work on the I. There have been those people who have been awakened without this. And those people have become enlightened without going through all of this. Yet most people, most Sages who have become realized have used the procedure, the process of removing the I.
So the Sages sat under the trees pondering this question. Where does the I come from? The I that tells me I’m human, I am a man, I am a woman, I am sick, I am well, I am happy, I am sad. They ponder the situation, where did this I come from? They came to the conclusion that the center of the being is the heart, not the physical heart but the spiritual heart. The center of the universe, what we call God, reality, nirvana, Sat-Chit-Ananda, is the spiritual heart on the right side of the chest. This is your true Self, this is what you really are. You are the spiritual heart. But to make it easy for us the Sages have determined that the spiritual heart is a place on the right side of your chest.
Now when you are asleep there is only the heart that is present which is the Self.
Nothing else exists. There is no universe, there is no world, there’s no others, when you are in deep sleep there is only the heart, the Self. But as you awaken somehow, what we call the I-thought begins to leave the heart center and enters the brain. And you become cognizant of the world and the universe and your body.
Prior to this you are not aware of the body, the universe or the world. You were in deep sleep nothing at all existed. But as you awaken the I becomes active and in a split second it is in the brain and you say, “I am awake.” Just the thought of you saying, “I am awake,” makes the wise one realize, it is the I that is awake. If I were really awake I will not be cognizant of my body as reality and the world as reality.
Therefore the I is awake. We try to catch the I by not allowing it to go into the brain. Yet it happens so fast it’s most difficult to do. Therefore we go the other direction.
We try to follow the I-thought back to its source. We follow the I-thought back from whence it came. This is the job we have to do to awaken to the real Self.
The I-thought doesn’t even exist to begin with. Yet as long as we believe we are the body do not fool yourself. Do not think that you are not the body and then think that you are not the body and act as if you are not the body. When you are not the body you will know. This is why everybody has to practice following the I-thought back to the source.
One returns to the source, you awaken and it’s just like the deep sleep stage only you’re awaken you are not sleeping. It’s the same as being in deep sleep only you are conscious. You are conscious as the Self, as omnipresence, as infinity. You do this by inquiring, “Who am I? What is the source of I?” And you allow the I-thought to return to its source.
This is what satsang is all about, returning to the source. There are those of us who are really working on ourselves and making progress. There are those of us who do absolutely nothing and have problems. It is your life. The only way you are ever going to be happy is by removing the I from your consciousness, from your life and awakening to the truth.
It is very simple, the I-thought is the cause of all your problems, nothing else.
There is nothing else wrong wherever you look whatever you see is because of the I-thought. No thing in itself has any validity.
In the beginning stages years ago, centuries ago, the great Sages came up with the idea to get to the I-thought everything else must be negated. By saying, “Neti-neti, not this, not this,” whatever you see, whatever you observe you realize that this is not the truth, this is not the truth, until you get down to the I and you eliminate the I.
But it’s been revealed to certain Sages there is a faster way and that is to get right to the I and remove the I. For all of the things of this world are attached to the I. Therefore you don’t have to take the hard way by saying, “Not this, not this,” and taking each day as it comes, you’ll never be finished. There are billions of things, you’ll keep saying, “Not this, not this,” continuously. It’ll never end. Therefore you realize that all these things are attached to this I. And all you really have to do is work on the I to eliminate the I and you will be free.
This is what satsang is all about. To totally eliminate the I-thought. Many people ask, “What are our goals. What is the purpose of satsang?” we have no goals and there is no purpose. It is total freedom. There can never be rules and regulations in satsang or this would not be satsang if there were. There has to be total freedom. It is up to you to see the situation and to become free. You therefore do not come here to get involved in politics or in management or anything else. You come here to remove the I-thought. Simple, remove the I-thought and you will be forever free. It is only the I-thought you have to contend with nothing else. There is really nothing else you have to do.
How many times a day do you say, “I?” You say it continuously. Begin to catch yourself. Begin to see what you’re saying, “I feel angry. Who feels angry?” Your real nature can be never be angry. “I feel upset. Who feels upset?” Your real nature can never feel upset. “I feel bored, I feel this, I feel that.” When you are living out of your real nature it makes no difference where you are, whom your with, what’s going on in the world, everything is alright. For the peace you’re looking for comes from within yourself. That happiness you’re searching for is you. You do not have to go out somewhere to find happiness.
You do not have to go to a certain place to find peace. It appears that way. It appears as if certain circumstances that are not peaceful you say to yourself, “I have to get away from here so I can be more peaceful.” So you get away and you appear to be more peaceful but for a while only.
Sooner or later the chaos and the confusion that are within you will take you over once more. And wherever you go you’ll feel the chaos and the confusion. Changing environments will not help you. Changing family members will not help you. Only by removing the I will you become totally free.
Therefore I’m addressing each one of you individually. What do you do with your life everyday? Do you allow your thoughts your emotions to overwhelm you? To control you, to lead you. To make you think something is wrong someplace. Nothing can ever happen to you, no thing can ever hurt you. If you’re trying to protect yourself, or feel safe by putting burglar alarms on your house, these things cannot help you at all. Karmically whatever is supposed to happen to you will happen to you. Your job is to overcome everything. To transcend everything. To realize that, “I am that I am.” To leave the world alone.
There is nothing to fight and nothing to fear in this world. But most of you do not believe this. You think you have to change things. You believe you have to make things happen. If you do not make things happen things will break down nothing will be right.
Who told you this? The only thing that will break down is your ego. Yet some of you will not allow this to happen. You will fight for your ego, you will protect your ego at all cost for you are afraid to let go. You do not know what is on the other side. You think if you let go you will be a wimp or a coward. You think all your good will be taken away from you, this is impossible. The planets spin in their orbits, the sun shines, the flowers grow. All these things happen without confusion, without chaos, everything is unfolding as it should but you come along and want to change things. You want to make this a better world in which to live. The one who has created this world knows how to take care of it. It does not need your help, thank you. Find yourself first then see if you want to change the world. Find yourself first then see if you want to change your life. Find yourself first then see if anything is missing from your life. It all begins with you. It all begins with you. You are the one!
(silence)
Do we have any questions in the question box?
SH: You’ve reduced everyone to silence. (R: Reduced them to nothing.) Same thing.
R: Anyone like to say anything?
SV: I started to write a question and you already said the answer.
R: Ask another question. (SV: Right, same thing. Then you’ve got to get rid of the answer.) And you keep going and going. There is no end. (SV: That’s forever going, stop going.) SE: Robert what do you mean by the I-thought?
R: The I-thought is absolutely nothing that exists but appears to exist as something which keeps you away from being enlightened. Something that appears as the world, the universe, God, the body, the mind. It is I who perceives this. I see these things. When I look outside what do I see. Do I see God? Do I see the Self or do I see the trees, the flowers, the sky, the ocean? If I see the flowers, the sky, the ocean this is an appearance and I sees these things. It is a thought in the mind called, “I.” If I weren’t present there would be nobody left to see all these things. Therefore the I is responsible for being human. The I appears as the world in all it’s manifestations. So in order for a person to awaken to the true self that he or she is consciousness the I-thought has to be quenched, removed, destroyed.
The I-thought never really existed but as long as we believe that we are the body then there is an I-thought because I am the body. That is what we say. I am the mind. I see the world. This is the I-thought. Yet all Sages have told us that the world is a dream it’s an illusion. It does not exist as it appears. It is because of the I-thought that the world came into manifestation as an appearance. So again as we remove the I-thought from consciousness we become completely free and liberated and we are no longer Ed or anybody else.
SE: So there is no I-thought, what there is, is self referring? And that process has to be ended? When you refer things to the body-mind and you say, “I see that. I believe that.” When you’re self-consciousness?
R: Same thing you can say that yes. There is no I-thought and there is really no one to prefer anything because the I-thought makes you prefer. It makes you prefer this against that, that against this. This is good and this is bad. I prefer to have a million dollars than to be broke. I prefer to be healthy than to be sick. This is all the I-thought. The I-thought tells us all of these things. But there is no one to be sick, there is no one to be healthy, there is no one to be poor, there is no one to be rich. No one like this exists at all. It is the I that makes it appear so. But again in reality there is no I. There never was an I. There is no person. There is only the self which is ineffable, which is total freedom.
SE: Why do you tell people to seek the I-thought if there is no I-thought? It’s a waste of time?
R: It’s a waste of time to talk. It’s a waste of time to say anything. But yet we have to give you an idea of what appears to be happening. All of these things appear to be happening. It’s all an appearance. As long as you believe in the appearance by feeling the world to be real in any way that you feel the world to be real, through happiness, through anger, through emotions, through controlling your emotions. All those things are false. But if you’re involved in those things then the I-thought is real for you. The I is real only to the person who believes they are the body and going through experiences. Therefore you cannot say that the I doesn’t exist for these people because they’re feeling all the pressures, they’re feeling the pull of the world. They’re feeling all the things of this world. So we tell them, remove the I and the world will disappear.
I can say right now there is no I. I doesn’t exist. But as long as you feel you are the body and you feel things that the body feels then the I does exist for you so you cannot fool yourself and say it does not exist when you’re feeling the world. So the method is to work on the I-thought by following it to the heart, when it sinks in the heart everything disappears.
SD: I think that was the main point. You’re really not stressed to seek the I-thought but to seek the source of the I-thought. And when you follow it to its source it just dissolves.
SE: But how can you seek the source of something that doesn’t exist? If the I-thought doesn’t exist how can you seek the source of something that doesn’t exist?
SD: Paradoxical, a divine paradox. But when you trace it to its source and find that it dissolves you realize that neither the source nor the I-thought exist of their own. But I have a question about that, you’ve talked about trying to trace the I-thought back from the brain to the spiritual heart but I do not understand this process, I mean do you literally visualize a thought going from the brain back to the heart?
R: No. You simply inquire, “Who am I?” That’s how you trace it. But… (SD: When you talked about making the choice - you said it’s hard to catch the I-thought in the morning, but if you can trace it back to the heart…) Exactly you trace it back by asking, “What is the source of the I? From whence did it arise? Where did it come from?” And that is tracing it back. By inquiring, “Who am I? Where does the I-thought come from?”
SY: Isn’t seeing it, what you just said, obscuring yourself?
R: You cannot see it. There is nothing to see. But what you feel is the world. The world is the I-thought. So when you feel the world you feel your mind, you feel something then you ask, “To whom does this come? Who is feeling this?” That’s how you trace it back.
SE: So who is feeling it, does not refer to the I, it refers to the awareness?
R: The awareness is your real nature. (SE: What?) Awareness is what you really are. (SE: Yeah.) This is your real nature but when you don’t know that, when the world is caving in on you. When you are self contracting and everything is pushing in on you then you have to use this method to remove these things.
SY: If awareness is functioning, it isn’t always functioning but you can inquire, it can function then one sees, the I is false.
R: Awareness is always functioning but we don’t see it because we’re involved in the world. So what we do is we use the I-thought to remove the obstacles so we can be back in our natural state of awareness. Awareness is always functioning, it is always our true nature. There never was a time when it was not. It’s always available. But the world the Maya has become real to us. We call the Maya the I-thought. (SY: Yes but in awareness there is not a feeling that’s aware?) In awareness only awareness appears. (SY: It doesn’t function?) In awareness nothing functions, (SY: No.) Just awareness, pure awareness.
SY: A bit of awareness allows a certain unfolding which is restoring a natural way or — how shall I say it? — the I is not functioning and awareness is functioning or is being present it doesn’t allow the human being that process to functions in the conditions anymore. Conditions are being kind of removed.
R: When awareness is functioning there are no conditions. (SY: No, but there is a different action there. There is pure beautiful action isn’t it? Call it compassion, love?) Compassion and love is part of the awareness… (SY: Right.) …and that is the awareness. That happens by itself when everything else disappears. (SY: Yes.) That’s a good point. When we look for compassion, we look for love, we look for peace, these things are our true nature.
By removing the other they will shine by themselves. SY: But that one can actually, a little bit by what you said that I like very much, not by directing others but one can without criticizing or without judging somehow give the others comfort on that level, from that awareness level. (R: Umm.) For once you see exactly what is wrong or right, in that sense, but it is not right and wrong but it is seeing what is obscured action and I action and reaction innocently and what is not. From that awareness level one can always see that, from where that the human being functions. But that is conditioning functioning or it is I functioning or is it from the pure source of the self which means awareness.
R: In a way this is true, when you are in a state of pure effortless awareness. (SY: Yeah.) There is no one left over to see anything. There is no functioning to be done, there is just pure awareness yet your body will continue to do beautiful work. And your body will do whatever it came here to do.
SY: But it does function in the human being but as unconsciously, it feeds through.
R: Well if it functions in awareness… (SY: yeah.) …then we’re giving qualities to awareness. But awareness has no qualities. Awareness is so ineffable… (SY: Yeah.) …it is beyond words. There is no way to explain it. It is something above and beyond anything you can ever imagine with our finite mind. Therefore we cannot even talk about awareness. It’s like the Hebrew who spell God, G dash d (G - D), they never mention the term “God” because it’s beyond comprehension. (SY: Um-hm.) Awareness is like that. (SY: Okay.) There is no way to say that it does this or it does that. It is beyond the realm of doing. (SY: Yeah.) There is no one left to do anything. As long as we believe we are the doer then we’re not in awareness.
SY: Isn’t it then that which is conscious in that awareness. Isn’t it also like compassion or kindness or giving or sharing, whatever. There’s no quality but it seems like a conscious out of its own original power or what shall I say, yes power. And compassion is just compassion, it has no attributes but it functions out of that empty open spaciousness. We give names to it but it could not function otherwise without compassion.
R: Yes this is true. You become a very compassionate person. (SY: Yeah.) A very loving person. But the awareness itself is even beyond those qualities. (SY: Yes, right.) SB: Robert how does our everyday awareness when we’re not functioning as the mind, when we’re functioning as just consciousness and the mind is silent. How does that everyday pure awareness relate to the actual consciousness itself the pure awareness of realization.
R: The pure awareness of realization is itself all there is. There is nothing else but pure awareness of realization. You cannot function as a human being and yet think that you are aware or that you are realized. The humanity has to go. All the human traits have to be destroyed and pure awareness will function by itself.
SB: But right now I can be looking at you and my mind can be silent but I’m not realized yet. How does it relate, how to experience it? The mind can be silent we’ve all experienced silent mind for certain periods of time and yet this realization doesn’t come up.
R: Because the mind has not been completely destroyed. The mind has to be completely destroyed. The ego has to be completely destroyed. When that happens then
awareness comes by itself because your true nature is awareness, that is what you really are. But you seem to be covered up by the dream world that pushes on you and contracts on you and causes things to happen to you. All of these things have to be given up, totally surrendered. Then consciousness, awareness by itself will shine forth. (SB: But your mind functions also when you want it, right?) There is no mind. (SB: You say it’s destroyed, but you can still use it after realization?) You are not really using your mind. It is awareness that is functioning. (SB: But can’t you form a thought in your mind?) SH: There is no you left.
SB: I know there is no you but a thought is formed isn’t there a thought? So you would have to think what am I going to buy at the groceries?
R: You become spontaneous. You know what to do in the grocery. You buy whatever is necessary but you don’t hold the thoughts, they are not solidified. They are not inside of you. (SB: You are not identified with them but you can still form them?) You don’t really form thoughts, they are not thoughts. It is consciousness itself. It is awareness itself that does everything. You are not involved in it anymore. You have nothing to do with it.
SY: And it is all comprehensive in a way isn’t it?
R: It’s all comprehensive yes. (SY: It can see the cause and effect at the same time?) Yes it is cause and effect. (SY: Yeah. Then one can be spontaneous. One doesn’t have to think anymore and one sees on that level kind of horizontal level, anything can, all aspects.) The only thing that I disagree with you is when you say something is seen. You see something. The seeing eye is gone. (SY: Yeah. Then I should say, comprehensive… ??? …then one can act spontaneous?) Yet when you go into these things like you are, to be spontaneous, to be all comprehensive, it’s as if somebody has to become that. You just function. (SY: Yeah.) You function… (SY: Just to describe something.) True.
SK: Robert on the subject of - I don’t know if this relevant to you but could you say — perhaps less objection rather than being deluded into breaking up the unbreakable into alleged cause and effect we just don’t do that or that isn’t done?
R: No at the state of enlightenment there is no cause and effect. Cause and effect is for the world. (SK: Right, rather than seeing them as the same would it be perhaps less wrong to say you’re no longer deluded into artificially breaking things up into so called cause and effect?) You could say that. (SK: Because none of that occurs?) If you’d like to say that you can say that. (students laugh) (SK: You didn’t like that enough so I’ll probably never say that again.) (more laughter)
Glen (SG): How does what you’re saying tally with some of the teachers that say to be enlightened there is nothing wrong with experiencing all the modifications of consciousness or the Zen Masters who say that it’s actually a heresy to have the absolute and then we have the functioning of the absolute, and heresy to not deny the functioning of the absolute. Or you have Ramana Maharshi saying that to the unenlightened the world is adapted or the form of the world, or God is adapted to the form of the world or to the enlightened person the form of the world is adapted to God. It’s not denying the form. What I’m getting from you is you’re denying the form, you are denying what it is that we are seeing.
R: Would you deny your dream. If you were having a dream and the dream so real to you and you wake up and it never existed. But while you’re dreaming you do not deny it. You see the dream as real because you’re experiencing certain feelings, emotions and you’re going through experiences. And you are talking about spiritual life in your dream just as you are now. It’s all a dream and when you wake up it never existed. It has no validity. It has no substance. It never really existed. Only the reality exists. It’s the same thing. It’s all part of the dream.
Glen (SG): But if you’re in a grocery store and even though you’re functioning spontaneously there is still a busyness thinking of the items that you’re buying.
R: Of course. This is a paradox. You buy the items you need, you live accordingly but there is no one home. (students laugh) (SG: Are you literally in another dimension simultaneously or have you completely integrated what apparently is this dream to everybody else?) There are no other dimensions and there is nothing to integrate. (laughter) There is just pure being. And it appears to the ajnani as if somebody is doing something. The ajnani sees the world from his own pure objective. Where he is looking from his own purity wherever his purity is. The ajnani looks at the world and sees joy, sees happiness, sees sorrow, sees unhappiness, sees people working for peace. This is from the view of the ajnani.
But for the Jnani, those things have been completely transcended. There is no one left to see those things. It’s like images on the blackboard. You draw images on the blackboard, you erase them, you draw other images so it is with life. Life goes on, but to the Jnani they are images on the screen of life. They have no validity, they have no fluidity. It’s like a dream. (SG: Yet at the same time you’re still seeing me sitting here and hearing me asking questions. Is that correct?) That is how it appears to you. (students laugh) That is how you see it. (laughter)
ST: Robert when you started your talk you were talking about the perennial or continual conflict between chaos and confusion and peace and quiet. Many people, like the discussion we had the other day, the average person cannot possibly understand what makes a Geoffrey Daman or a Charles Manson. What is there in the interpenetration of dimensions that makes something so heinous, so lacking in compassion that it fails to understand - I’m not saying this right - what makes a Charles Manson?
R: We do. Our own mind. We create him in our own image. It is we who see all of these things. As we develop ourselves, as we raise our consciousness and go higher those things will be unnecessary. But as long as we are where we are, we will always create a Hitler or Charles Manson, these people are part of this world of duality. When you have a world of duality, you have to have people like that or you wouldn’t have a world of duality. There couldn’t be just total peace in this world. For it will be a contradiction. The world and the universe is a universe and a world of total duality. Good and bad, right and wrong, happy and sad, Manson and St Francis. Everything exists in the world of duality.
What we’re doing in satsang here, in Advaita Vedanta, in this teaching, is to break away from the whole thing. To break out of the shell of duality where there is a Manson and where there is a St Francis. Where there is a Hitler and where there is a Delai Lama.
They are both part of the world of duality. We’re breaking away from this, we’re breaking out of this shell. We’re coming into a completely new understanding. That there is no world that contains a Charles Manson or a Delai lama. There is only pure effortless choice-less awareness. And this is so ineffable there is no way to describe it. It is something beyond anything that you can ever think with your finite mind. The finite mind can never comprehend the infinite.
This is why the only thing we can do is to turn within and find out this truth for ourselves. And until we do there will always be a Charles Manson, a Hitler, a Napoleon, a Genghis Khan, a St Francis, a Jesus, a Delai Lama and so forth. There will always be those types of people in this world but we are to break out of it. We are to go beyond that. To go to the place where nothing like this ever existed. There is nobody born like this, nobody dies like this, there is no coming, there is no going, there is just plain nothing.
SD: So are you saying when we are aware and awake we would realize in our dimension, or of St Francis exist at all?
R: Well you wouldn’t even have those things come into your mind. You realize that the world doesn’t exist so they couldn’t exist. Again we go back to the dream state. In the dream state you dream about St Francis, you dream about Hitler, you dream about Charles Manson, all those things appear to be happening in the dream state until you awaken. When you awaken they never happened. You do not say about a dream, “That was the past and this is the future.” There is no past or future, it’s a dream. A dream that is out of our mind. The dream came out of your self. (SD: So they would both be part of Maya?) Yes.
SH: The mind spins all that?
R: The mind spins the web. (SH: Only an apparent source…) Of course. (SH: …that the spiders spinning it.) Exactly.
SD: The holocaust and everything? (SH: Everything is in the mind.) R: But you can’t say this to people who are suffering from the holocaust or people who have been through all kinds of horrible dastardly experiences. They will not understand this. This is why Ramana Maharshi, Shankara tells us that Advaita Vedanta is only for certain people, mature souls, who have been through the mill. And they’ve studied many yoga techniques and Zen and all kinds of teachings in past lives perhaps and have advanced to this state where they can now see it’s all nonsense.
SY: And the Delai Lama says it is more important to yearn about the cause and effect, the law of karma than about the Oath Kanapa?
R: Yes he says this because he is speaking to the people. (SY: Yes I understand that.) Yes, that’s how you speak to the people, the masses. (SY: Otherwise they would crucify him.(laughter) They have crucified Christ.) Yes. (SY: They crucified Socrates, just because of that.) Of course. (SY: It’s incomprehensible.)
R: We’ll have to crucify Henry. (SY: Pardon?) We’ll crucify Henry.
SH: I’m ready sweet heart. (Students laugh) Take me I’m yours.
Glen (SG): Robert how about all the teachers who are always insinuating their teaching and there are a lot of teachings out there that we have to be careful because those teachings are within the realms of illusion and those teachers are themselves deluded. Something like this you can’t go to the library and you can’t get the facts you would really have to go on - I don’t know what you go on?
R: Every teaching has its place. Everybody belongs where they belong. There are no mistakes.
SE: Can’t we have a rating system? (students laugh) A+, A-or maybe a guru referral service, what kind of guru do you want? (more laughter) R: Actually this is why they say, “Know thyself.” Know who you are then you’ll understand the rest.
SK: It seems that there is no possible way mechanically to prove this, being in this illusion though there has to be some sort of higher power that can pull you out of this. I can never do this on my own.
R: Why do you say that? (SK: I get to the same place all over again.) Who says that?
(laughter) Why do you say that? (SK: Experience.) That was your past experience this is today. Forget about the past. You are the only one that can bring yourself out of it. You have all that power within you. If you’re ready it’ll happen. Only you can do it to yourself, no one else can do it for you. (SK: So it’s a desire then?) It’s more than a desire. It’s a sort of an understanding. A total surrendering of the ego, the self with a small “s.” A total giving up. A total disgust with all the things of this world. That happens by itself. But as long as you’re enjoying the world then it’ll never happen. (SK: How about 99%, that is 1% leaves you in it.) Then you’ll be 99% pure, 1% deluded. But get rid the 1% and you’ll come out of it a bit quicker.
SB: Is that what happens to gurus who think they have fantastic teachings but who want to be worshiped and think they’re God and want all your money and everything, is that what happens?
R: I have no idea what happens to these people. Again know your Self. The answer is always know who you are and where you’re coming from then you’ll understand everything else. And you’ll leave everything alone.
SY: If we really look at the teachings there is always something - what is called “know thy self” it means also, how did you act in your conditioning? In the moment of seeing, that will disappear, that conditioning. (R: Yes.) So it is very helpful. Some teachings are helpful. The aspect what you’re saying that someone wants to be worshiped, usually it’s done by their helplessness. and will of the people. They elevate the teacher it’s all that they know. If the teacher is not totally realized it will get at him at one point or her, their role as God but sooner or later they will fall apart anyway
no one will be with them who hold up to this pretense too long. Just observe their actions on that level I think.
R: There are different kinds of teachers in this world. (SY: Right.) Even the lowest churches. All of the churches are necessary. (SY: Yeah.) Everything is necessary. There is nothing wrong, there are no mistakes. Everything is necessary for people. (SY: In the conditioned mind those who criticize are way past criticizing because they are arrogant, the ego plays itself up all the time, so why denigrate a situation and identify with the divine.) Sure again this is why it is written, work on yourself take care of your own business. Mind your own business and everything else will take care of itself if you take care of yourself.
SD: I remember one time early when I started listening to you Robert, you said that we were all hell bound for heaven. (laughter) And I never have forgotten that because it’s so true of every path being in it’s right place at the right time.
R: Sure. So what else is new.
SV: That hell bound for heaven does it mean we have to join a motorcycle gang? (laugh) R: If you want? Why not? (laughter)
SB: You have to join ego’s anonymous. (laughter) Robert were there many teachers in India who were really realized beings who wanted to be worshiped? Is that an authentic path or…?
R: Well there are many teachers doing all kinds of things. (SB: Are they authentic realized beings?) Don’t ask me. (laughter)
S: If nothing else happens you can give this. (laughter) Somebody got it. (Don’t know what student is referring to.)
Glen (SG): Robert isn’t it true that even in the dream state the sense of reality can break through?
Or can more easily be sensed in the dream state? I haven’t had the actual experience but then they say of what I’m talking about wouldn’t relate to God wouldn’t you say? But even if you think of it would it be possible to awaken for a while?
R: In the dream state yes. You can awaken in the dream state for a while, yes. But when you go all the way the dream breaks and there’s no longer a dream. You come out of the dream completely. In that final analysis when you have a complete total awakening.
Glen (SG): Yeah and then you wake up in the morning and things are looking great for a while because you woke up in the dream…???… (R: Yes.) (tape ends)
Absätze ohne Sprecherpräfix gehören dem zuletzt genannten Sprecher — so steht es im Buch, wo der Präfix nur den Anfang einer Rede markiert. Die Zuordnung ist eine Folgerung dieser Ausgabe. Namen in Klammern sind aus dem Text erschlossen: sicher belegt sind SM = Mary, SF = Fred, SJ = Jay, SC = Nate, wahrscheinlich SG = Glen, SR = Jorge. Alle anderen Kürzel bleiben stehen, weil der Beleg nicht trägt.